May present a choking hazard

Saturday, February 9, 2008

All New Atom #20

Written by Gail Simone/Art by Mike Norton/Inks by Trevor Scott

The issue starts with Choi wrapping up saving the entire population of Superman's planet by shrinking them onto a crystal. He then proceeds to fly back to Earth with the Green Lanterns, hitch a ride with the Flash to his University where he is welcomed with a bright, young class of eager minds raring to learn. After learning minds, he heads on home to his girls, including but not limited to - his high school crush and Wonder Woman..

Of course he's dreaming.

But it's no regular dream. No noooooooo! The evil Dean has him push-pinned to a desk with a big ol purple tentacled thing attached to him causing all sorts of mayhem. Pretty much what you see on the cover there.

What you get in this, the final hurrah for Simone and Norton on this title, is the aforementioned purple tentacle thing, the evil Dean turning into a fangled squid monster, the big boss and guy behind all the evil and chaos and goofery that has taken place in Ivy Town (an old friend), a Destroy all Monsters rubber suit kaiju attack on the town, a clutch appearance by the giant blobby cancer god of the sewers, and head shouting.Those are just some things that occur.It may seem like a lot to cram in, and for a normal book of this length it is. It's a nice wrap up of their run, but I wish they had more room to let things play out and really have fun with it. Especially since I'm a big ol sucker for every device used in this issue.

But that's all she wrote. In #21, Choi is handed over to Rick Remender, and Pat Olliffe works the artistry. We'll see what these boys can do and how long All New runs on for.

There'll of course be a tie-in somewhere when they kill of Palmer in Countdown.

You know, I got this just the other day, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. It was certainly a slam-bang story, and I liked a lot of the elements of it...but I was sort of left cold at the end. Part of the problem is Chronos. On the one hand, I thought it was freaking AWESOME that he had masterminded the whole thing (although it really seemed a little over the top), but on the other, I'm very sad that his regard for Ray was insincere. I really like the enemies with respect angle, like GI JOE and Destro. I didn't quite know what to make of the cancer god though...what the heck do they do with it now that it's eaten the four monsters? I DID really love Ryan's rejection of the Black Mercy, the fact that he IS living his dream. That was pretty darn cool. I would really have liked to see more about the Dean, I mean, after they built him up for all this time, we get one quick fight and no exposition? Not cool. Still, all in all, a pretty good finish to a great run. I'm very sorry to see this team go, but here's hoping their successors are up to the challenge.